The present invention relates to a film guide device for guiding a film to a film attachment position when the film is rewound into a cartridge.
Recently, there has been proposed a cartridge C as shown in FIG. 9 which is so designed that a film F, after being drawn out from cartridge and then processed, can be returned to cartridge C. This type of cartridge C includes a film entrance C1 that can be opened and closed and a spool C2 having a hooking claw C3, as shown in FIG. 10. A front end of a developed film F can be hooked by the hooking claw C3 to be rewound into the cartridge C.
Attachment of the film F to the cartridge C is achieved in the following manner by using an attaching tool 100 and a guide device 101, as shown in FIG. 11.
The front end portion of the developed film F is guided to its film attachment position in front of the film entrance C1 of the cartridge C by the guide device 101. Then, the front end portion of the film F is hooked by the attaching tool 100 and is penetrated into the cartridge C from the film entrance C1. Then, attachment holes (not shown) at the front end portion of the film F are hooked by the hooking claw C3 of the spool C2, for achieving film attachment.
The terms of "attachment" and "film attachment" as employed herein mean that the front end portion of the film F is attached to the spool C2 of the cartridge C.
For film attachment to be successful, it is an essential precondition that the front end of the film F is precisely positioned at the film attachment position. However, the film F has low resistance to bending in a longitudinal direction thereof. Thus, when the front end portion of the film F positioned at the film attachment position is projected from the guide device 101 and released therefrom, as shown in FIG. 11, it becomes hard to stably maintain the front end of the film F in the correct position. This causes a problem that the film F is liable to not be hooked by the attaching tool 100.